January 25, 1957 – October 24, 2008
Born in Detroit, Cheryl Ann Marie Grout of Houston, Texas earned her B.S. from Central Michigan University in 1980. She worked as an in vitro fertilization technician at Hutzel Hospital in Detroit before moving to Texas, where she worked for Baylor College of Medicine. Grout was survived by her partner Mary Louise Sorensen.
September 19, 1967 – July 23, 2011
David Blair, better known as Blair, was born in Newton, New Jersey and moved to Detroit in the 1990s. He achieved national recognition as an openly queer socialist poet, artist, singer-song writer, and activist. Blair also taught poetry to Detroit Public School students and at the Ruth Ellis Center. Among his many achievements were a National Poetry Slam title and the BENT Writing Institute Mentor Award.
September 23, 1938 – February 3, 2019
Born in Lewiston, Idaho, Carl Ivan Jennings served in the U.S. Air Force before making his way to Michigan, where, in the late 1960s, he met his life partner and later husband Lawrence Gammons. In 1981, they opened Douglas Dunes Resort and in 2012 helped to found West Shore AWARE. The two were featured in the 2015 WGVU documentary Michigan Hometown Stories: Saugatuck/Douglas.
Holland Sentinel, February 6, 2019
Commercial Record, February 7, 2019
July 18, 1962 – December 5, 2018
Deborah Jo “Debbie” Goodnough was born in Escanaba and resided in Clyde Township. She married her longtime partner Angela Sarazin in Port Huron in 2016. Goodnough worked at Subway and was a devoted fan of the New York Yankees.
November 18, 1914 – January 27, 1988
William Hawkins Ferry grew up in Detroit and attended Cranbrook before studying at Harvard University. The grandson of a founder of the Detroit Institute of Arts, Ferry became a noted collector, patron, and champion of 20th century art. An expert of architectural history, as well, his modernist 1964 home in Grosse Pointe Shores was featured in House Beautiful and Interiors magazines.
December 23, 1946 – March 14, 2011
Judith Slotkin of Bloomfield Hills and formerly of Detroit was marketing manager for Show Tech Presentation Systems and later ran her own consulting firm. A volunteer fundraiser for WTVS-TV, the Music Hall, and Michigan Opera Theater, she was also actively involved in the Jewish Gay Network of Michigan. Slotkin was survived by her life partner of Anne Adelson.
May 30, 1952 – November 6, 1999
Virgil Julius “Tony” Leone was born in Detroit and graduated with the class of 1970 from Mt. Pleasant High School. At Central Michigan University, he was an early member of Gay Liberation, serving as its president in the mid-1970s. Leone later moved to San Francisco where he worked as a Registered Nurse and became involved in local HIV/AIDS activism. He died from AIDS-related complications at age 47.
September 22, 1946 – June 27, 2011
A dedicated and influential figure in Kalamazoo’s LGBTQ community, Jim Knox was co-founder in 1985 of Community AIDS Resource and Education Services and co-founder in 1987 of the Kalamazoo Gay Lesbian Resource Center, later renamed OutFront Kalamazoo. Knox was also a longtime employee of the Barn Theatre in Augusta.
April 14, 1958 – October 24, 2012
Sally Ann Hopkins was born in Jackson and graduated in the class of 1976 from Jackson High School. She later earned her Associates Degree from Columbia College in Missouri and served 20 years in the U.S. Navy. Following her service, Hopkins worked at Home Depot and resided in Atlanta, Indiana with her partner Kathryn “Kathi” Lee Miller.
July 8, 1942 – March 11, 2019
Frankfort resident Kathleen June Blake was a native of Massachusetts and earned her Bachelor’s from the New Bedford Institute of Technology. A longtime Lansing resident, she spent much of her career in state government as an economic development officer. Blake served on the board for the Lesbian Connection and was survived by her partner Julann McFarlane.
Lansing State Journal, March 16, 2019
Lesbian Connection, July/August 2019
Michigan LGBTQ Remember 